There is a philosophical question I suppose. If you had never tasted the original... how would you know if you had it right in the first place? Even if you had tasted it, the product has been out of production since the 70's or 80's (if I recall reading that), so you may not even recognize it when you hit it.

I wonder -- were Pimm's 2-6 any different than Pimm's 1 other than the base spirit? It's my understanding that Pimm's 1 is gin, vermouth, quinine, and bitter orange peel (I don't know the proportions).

If Pimm's 2-6 were the same as Pimm's 1 with just different spirits, then I would think experimenting in creating your own Pimm's 1 from scratch (and comparing with the real thing) would get you a good approximation of how to create Pimm's 4.

On 2014-04-07 14:04, wizzard419 wrote:There is a philosophical question I suppose. If you had never tasted the original... how would you know if you had it right in the first place? Even if you had tasted it, the product has been out of production since the 70's or 80's (if I recall reading that), so you may not even recognize it when you hit it.

I have thought this same thing about the mai tai ~ if Clement VSOP & Appleton 12 is the connoisseurs popular choice, how far is it from the original taste?

Another one that comes up from time to time is when a recipe is intentionally never written down and the only person that knew it dies. Oysters Rockefeller suffers from this since Antoine died and the surviving chefs did their best to determine what went into it so the product they serve today is more of a tribute than the real thing. I would imagine customers who ate the original regularly did notice the differences... but they are all probably dead too so no one can say if it truly is wrong.